00:00A little football sprinkled in today. Brian Baldinger, he's coming on at 8 o'clock.
00:05What do you think he's going to say about this draft class?
00:08Oh, I think Brian Baldinger is going to be all in on this.
00:12I think he's going to talk some nitty-gritty football, man.
00:14And he will.
00:15Spencer Fano.
00:16Ken's going to be jealous.
00:18He's going to miss out.
00:19Yo, Ken.
00:20Don't go to the Caribbean, Ken.
00:21I don't know if I shared this before.
00:24I'm not exactly sure.
00:25Last year at training camp, we were there.
00:27We were getting set to interview, I think, DeJuan Jones.
00:30And Baldinger was there.
00:31And I'm like, Kenny, we've had him on the show.
00:34Let's go up and talk to him.
00:35He had a moment where he wasn't really talking to anybody.
00:38Just probably immersing himself in football.
00:41He was probably just staring into space, thinking about the three gap.
00:45He didn't have Google glasses on, just watching.
00:47Just blank stare, Baldinger.
00:49All I do, think football.
00:50Think football.
00:5124-7, football.
00:52And I'm like, Kenny, let's go up and introduce ourselves.
00:55We have him on the show.
00:56It's good to put a face with a name.
00:58Ken absolutely refused to.
01:01Was he, like, nervous?
01:03Yes.
01:04Seriously.
01:05For as outgoing as you guys think Kenny is, he is so nervous in social settings.
01:10It is so hilarious to see that the man behind the curtain.
01:14Owen, will you concur on this?
01:17I will not just Baldinger.
01:18Baldinger in person is a great example, but Ken has, and to his credit, he's built himself
01:25into a great talk show host in the city of Cleveland, but he still holds that childlike
01:30enthusiasm.
01:31Anytime we have a big guest on.
01:33I mean, Todd Munkin was in here who he had just done, you know, the draft with.
01:39Yes.
01:39And he's still, like, coach is coming in today.
01:42He left the room when Todd came in here.
01:45And so, Todd Munkin is in here, and we are just talking about degenerate gambling stories.
01:49Oh, yeah.
01:49Because I got a lot of...
01:50The off-air stuff was great.
01:51Again, not football.
01:53Got to put it out there, NFL Mike Florio Pabllo Torre.
01:56Not football.
01:56And when he does it, he's not near a facility.
01:59Yeah, yeah.
01:59He walks outside the facility.
02:01Anyway, Kenny wouldn't even come in here and co-mingle with him because he doesn't know
02:06how to icebreak.
02:07He doesn't know how to just be a guy.
02:09That's so funny to me.
02:10It's just unbelievable.
02:11Then, a little, again, behind the curtain, after the Todd Munkin interview, we forgot
02:16to talk about this because it was Friday or whatever.
02:18It was a lot of craziness going on.
02:20It was coming in hot, yeah.
02:20Afterwards, I mean, would Todd Munkin have stayed for an hour?
02:25Todd Munkin, we could have probably done 24 hours up until the derby started.
02:31Right.
02:31Had we wanted to.
02:32He started the NBC pregame show.
02:34I had an interview, and I was in the car, and I had to run into the store, and so
02:38I
02:38was trying to hold it out as long as I could, and then he kept talking about the sports betting
02:43stuff, and I was like, all right, this is where I got to cut it off.
02:45But after I came back, I was like, it seemed like the interview went off for another 10
02:49minutes.
02:49It did.
02:50It did.
02:50Just talking about stuff.
02:51Someone's like, you guys didn't mention Miles Garrett.
02:53You talked horse racing.
02:54It's like, yes, Todd Munkin made sure that he was going to fill the rest of the broadcast
02:59day with the derby stuff, and I loved it because, you know, I asked him about the Mary Kay thing
03:05and Shiloh, and he was ready for it, and we were looking at each other in the eye, and
03:10it's funny to see the comments like, oh, Lima.
03:13Lima was scared.
03:14You know what?
03:14Munkin gave it to him.
03:16Munkin will never talk to him again.
03:17He's never coming on the station again.
03:19Todd Munkin wanted to do another two hours.
03:22It's like, he was not leaving this room.
03:24That's awesome.
03:25Anywho, it was a great time.
03:26So, we got Baldy on at 8 o'clock.
03:28Don't forget about Joe Varden at 9 o'clock.
03:30So, everybody seems unanimous.
03:33The Browns and Andrew Barry knocked one out of the ballpark with that recent draft.
03:39Stockpiling, you know, players it needs.
03:42Offensive line, certainly they addressed it in full with this offseason.
03:47And the wide receivers, you know, going after two wide receivers.
03:50You had somebody on this station, this aired over the weekend, Mark Schlereth, who is somebody
03:57who never pulls a punch when it comes to the NFL, and certainly the Browns, we know his
04:02thoughts on Jerry Judy over the years.
04:03Did he have some nice things to say about the Cleveland Browns roster?
04:09And then you look with what they've done in free agency, trying to rebuild their offensive
04:15line, what they have accumulated on the defensive side of the ball through the draft and through
04:19building their football team.
04:21And then all of a sudden, what they did in this draft with weapons and the way they attack
04:26some of the deficiencies and the weaknesses in the receiving core, what they did last year
04:31in the draft with the running back position.
04:33And you look at this team, you're like, damn, they're intriguing.
04:36If they could get C-plus quarterback play with the roster that they created, this team could
04:43make a little noise in the AFC North.
04:46All right.
04:47Are you on board?
04:48When Mark Schlereth is saying nice things about your Cleveland Browns.
04:52And C-plus quarterback play.
04:53That's not, we don't need a world beater, right?
04:56We just need to go from last year, which was F, D-minus.
05:02And that's not just one guy.
05:04I'm lumping in Joe Flacco.
05:06I'm lumping in Dylan Gabriel.
05:08By the numbers, it was all bad.
05:09Shador gave me the most excitement.
05:12For sure.
05:12Not going to lie.
05:13Like, the time, the escapability and the deep balls.
05:16Like, that's got me thinking this has a chance.
05:18If he didn't do any of that stuff, I'd be like, this seems like a waste of time.
05:22So how does he feel about Shador Sanders?
05:25I mean, when you start talking about Dylan Gabriel and Shador Sanders, I don't really
05:29care about the Shador fans.
05:31He was woefully inadequate as the starter.
05:35You can sit there and say whatever you want.
05:37And you could be a Shador sycophant or whatever.
05:40But the bottom line is, there is a lot of work to be done.
05:44And there was a reason that Stefanski didn't want to play him.
05:48And it wasn't that, I'm mad and I don't like Shador.
05:51And it wasn't like, well, Shador's getting the crappy game plans.
05:55And they're trying to sabotage him.
05:58That's just stupidity.
06:00That is a fan base that is just delusional.
06:04And so ultimately, I don't think the bar is real high that Deshaun Watson has to leap
06:10over to become the starter in Cleveland.
06:12All right.
06:13That was on the Sticking Truth podcast aired over the weekend on this radio station.
06:19And of course, you can catch it on Odyssey at any time.
06:22So Schlereth, I think like most people outside of Cleveland, was like, yeah, quarterback play
06:27was terrible.
06:28Yeah.
06:28In Cleveland last year, do you think he was going a little too far when talking about
06:33Shador and his fans?
06:34And what was the voice that he was portraying the fans to sound like?
06:39Because I've talked to Shador fans in the flesh.
06:41They don't sound like whatever voice that Mark Schlereth was putting on there.
06:45Yeah.
06:46I think Schlereth is spot on when it comes to the quarterback play last year, just in general.
06:53And like you mentioned, I'm like, Shador was the most exciting.
06:56He actually hit explosive plays down the field.
06:59Nobody else was doing that.
07:00A novel concept.
07:01But what I think is interesting here, and this is kind of the balance that I try to strike
07:05with the Shador conversation, and that some people either are in the weeds one way or
07:10the other on, is like, how much of Shador's play was just, well, some of this is just him,
07:18and some of this is the roster around him.
07:21And that's why there's so much excitement about this draft.
07:23Because the idea here is, well, now there's not an excuse, right?
07:28Now you have an offensive line, theoretically.
07:30I love the phrase that you used before, which is, you addressed the offensive line, but did
07:35you actually fix the offensive line?
07:36That's to be determined.
07:37But I do feel comfortable at least saying right now, I think the O-line's going to be better
07:41than last year.
07:42Because last year, it was just a whole host of injuries, guys in and out, clearly guys
07:47that have aged out of their primes.
07:50Like, it just wasn't a good group.
07:51So I think at least having bodies in there that are healthier, younger, fresher, probably
07:56means you're at least trending in the right direction towards being better.
07:59But we have to see that in action.
08:01But at least you made that group better.
08:03You obviously addressed the wide receiver group.
08:05You added two guys in the draft that, at one point, were at least talked about as first
08:09round players.
08:10And so I think there's a lot of reason to be excited about what's now around the quarterback
08:15position.
08:15And there's no excuse now if you're Shador Sanders or if you're a Shador Sanders fan
08:19for like, when we get to the end of the season, if Shador plays, I don't know, 10 games
08:25and it still doesn't look good, we can't keep doing this thing of just like, well, he didn't
08:30have enough help.
08:31Because now the Browns finally addressed that.
08:33And I think that's kind of where I'm going into the season feeling like, last year, my argument
08:38was if you just got competent quarterback play, maybe the Browns could be pretty good.
08:41I think this year that actually feels like it's the case.
08:44Like, if you just get competent quarterback play, there's now a team around the quarterback
08:48that can get them going in the right direction and maybe make some noise.
08:51All right, good stuff.
08:52Spencer German in for Ken Carman today and rookie minicamp starts later in the week.
08:56Get ready for a full comprehensive coverage from 92.3 The Fan starting on Friday.
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